Dr Costas Karageorghis of Brunel University has released research that found listening to the right music before and during training boosts performance by up to 18 percent.

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Here are the doc's suggestions for high-intensity exercising such as cycling:

75 per cent maximum heart rate

Born to be Wild - Steppenwolf

Movin' Too Fast - Artful Dodger & Romina Johnson

I Feel Good - James Brown

Troika - Prokofiev

85 per cent maximum heart rate:

The Heat Is On - Glenn Frey

Reach - S Club 7

Everybody Needs Somebody to Love - Blues Brothers

William Tell Overture - Rossini

Dr Karageorghis isn't advocating urban cyclists plug themselves into iPods while pedalling, his research has more to do with music for warm-ups or gym work.

He said: "It's no secret that music inspires superior performance. Just as the association between a first love and 'your song' can be very strong, so is the relationship between music and sporting performance levels."

Pro cyclists are well-known for their warm-up routines done to music. Lance Armstrong motivates himself with the Foo Fighters when warming up on his turbo trainer.

In Cycling Weekly a fortnight ago, much of the issue concerned what to download to your iPod. The magazine recommended trance classic Cafe del Mar by Energy 52 as the perfect track-side warm-up selection as it is lyric free and has tempo variations in tune with warm-up interval bursts.

Rabbit in your headlights from the Psyence Fiction album by UNKLE was recommended as a good warm-down track.

But the magazine could have also included Olympic Cyclist by Scottish band Ballboy.